Why Teenage Activist Greta Thunberg Is The Role Model Everyone Needs At This Time Of Climate Change Crisis
Teenage is one phase of life where we tend to make choices that may have long-term implications on our future. This is the time when we start thinking about our career options and we are going to face challenges that life poses in our journey ahead. However, there's a catch on how we all go about building our future, we are more worried about ourselves rather than considering a life where we can give back what we have taken from the soil we stand on.
Here's where 16-year-old teenager Greta Thunberg stands out. She hardly cares about her own well-being but is committed to a larger cause of climate change.
How it all began?
In August 2018, Greta Thunberg started a school strike for the climate outside the Swedish Parliament accusing her country of not following the Paris Climate Agreement that evoked a huge response.
Reuters
Since then, the movement has spread all over the world with over 1,00,000 school children involved. The movement is called Fridays For Future.
The group chanted slogans such as "System change, not climate change," "Unite behind the science" and "Stop denying, the earth is dying" and it immediately caught the world's attention.
Why is she special?
"I have Asperger's syndrome and that means I'm sometimes a bit different from the norm. And ¡ª given the right circumstances ¡ª being different is a superpower."
This is what she wrote in her official Instagram handle after people started calling out on her disorder.
(Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger's, is a developmental disorder characterised by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour and interests.)
Despite all these impediments, she never gave up but continued her relentless battle against climate change.
She speaks. The world listens
The 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference that took place between 2 and 15 December 2018 in Katowice, Poland, is the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24).
Swedish activist Thunberg had decided to go to Poland to give a speech at the UN climate conference.
"But I've learned you are never too small to make a difference," she had said referring to her native country Sweden's small size.
"We can't solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis," she added later in her speech highlighting the urgent need to act upon climate change.
It was at this conference that her speech resonated with people across the world. Her powerful speech pulled up all the world leaders for their lack on intent in saving the planet.
Even our Prime Minister Narendra Modi wasn't spared
In February early this year, Greta urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take immediate action against climate crisis.
"Dear Mr Modi, you need to take action now against the climate crisis, not just talking about it because if you keep going on like this, doing business as usual, and just talking about and bragging about the little victories, you are going to fail. And if you fail, you are going to be seen as one of the worst villains in human history in the future. And you don't want that," she said in a video shared by Brut India.
How a small cause became a global movement
In March this year, school children from over 90 countries skipped school to demand urgent action against climate change.
And among them were the school kids from Delhi who had decided to bunk classes to join the climate change action bandwagon.
This young girl makes it clear. They worry about their future..
¡ª N SOOD (@NSOOD6) March 15, 2019
At the #ClimateStrike against#climatechange
At Gurugram, India#StudentStrike4ClimateChange pic.twitter.com/BVtu2GQG6Q
'School Strike 4 Climate' started with Greta Thunberg.
Student groups from Indian cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Delhi as well as Bhavnagar in Gujarat, Ambikapur in Chhattisgarh, and Udaipur took part.
Setting an example
Practice what you preach is an old adage and it definitelty holds true in Greta's case. Last week, she arrived in New York harbour after a two-week long voyage across the Atlantic ocean.
According to reports, Greta and her crew travelled from Plymouth in the United Kingdom on a zero-emissions racing yacht across the ocean. Instead of taking a flight to New York, Greta chose this mode of transport to spread the word on sustainability.
Finally here. Thank you everyone who came to see me off in Plymouth, and everyone who welcomed me in New York! Now I¡¯m going to rest for a few days, and on Friday I¡¯m going to participate in the strike outside the UN. pic.twitter.com/yZ9yJHh1lZ
¡ª Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) August 28, 2019
This comes at a time when leaders across the world attending climate change conferences gathered for a climate change summit in their respective private planes.
A recent study revealed that nearly 1,500 private jets flew in and out of Davos for this year's meeting.
Reuters
Putting that to perspective, a single-passenger jet travelling from New York's JFK airport to Zurich - round trip - emits around 7 metric tons of carbon. This figure was calculated according to MyClimate.org's 'carbon footprint' calculator.
The carbon emissions from the Davos jet is set to be more than 1,500 tons of carbon and it's almost equal to burning 1.6 million pounds of coal.
High time we all act
Climate change is actually for real and if we don't act sooner, we might end up meeting the fate we all didn't wish for.
For now, we all need more role models like Greta Thunberg.